Read the review HERE

I was honored to see my memoir, It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live: An Italian-American Story of Coming Home, recently reviewed in the March issue of The Florentine, an English-language publication based in Florence, Italy.

The author, Alexandra Lawrence, asks the question that sits at the heart of the book: Can the land of our ancestors heal us?

In 2000, when my life was collapsing, I set off alone to Italy to find my grandparents’ ancestral village of Rotondella. There I found the open arms of family, but I also uncovered the lingering shadows of the malocchio, omertà, rigid Catholicism, abject poverty, arranged marriage, patriarchal control, and the Mafia.

Slowly, I began to understand how these forces shaped not only my grandmother’s life, but also my mother’s – and my own. By honoring the courage of the women who came before me, I found the grace to make peace with my mother. And in that understanding, I found peace within myself.

I began writing this story in the summer of 2000. When my mother heard about the project, she was not happy.

“You can write about your grandmother, Missy,” she said. “But you can’t write about me. No one needs to know about my life—not even you.”

Since she was the critical link between my grandmother and me, I set the writing aside.
Twelve years later – just five days before she died – she showed incredible courage and vulnerability. My feisty mom, despite all the fraught and difficult moments we had lived through, said,

“My life would make a good book, wouldn’t it?”
“But you told me I wasn’t allowed to write about you,” I countered.
She paused, then said simply:
“After I die, write.”

And with her permission, I did.

So, to answer Alexandra’s question, returning to the land of my ancestors did help to heal me. And for that, I’ll be eternally grateful.